For the record Porgy and Bess was filmed by Samuel Goldwyn in 1959.
The film starred Sidney Poitier as Porgy, Dorothy Dandridge as Bess and Sammy
Davis Jnr as Sportin Life. It was a disaster. By employing playwright
N. Richard Nash to write a screenplay in place of Heywards original
libretto, Goldwyn turned the folk opera into a Hollywood musical a fact which
Otto Premingers ponderous self-important direction underlined. "It
lumbers across the screen almost entirely void of spontaneity, lightness
or charm," commented musical film and theatre historian, Miles Krueger. Only
Brock Peters as Crown and Sammy Davis Jr shone in the uninspired cast.
Ironically, André Previn won an Oscar for "arranging" Gershwins
score. The Gershwin and Heyward estates blocked any further screenings in
theatres or television after the films first theatrical release.

Clearly there is room for a new film of Porgy and Bess - perhaps
a non-commercially but artistically-inspired producer might one day tackle
this marvellous folk opera?

This present reissue was the first recording of Gershwins opera, first
released in 1951. The opera had been first performedonly sixteen
years earlier in 1935and, indeed, some of the singers had been in
the original stage company so they were able to bring to this recording the
true traditions of this masterpiece. Larry Winters (Porgy) and Camilla Williams
(Bess) were recruited from the New York City Centre Opera and are first class
actors/singers so too is Avon Long outstanding as the charming yet
slippery-as-a-snake Sportin Life. The contract orchestra is splendid
too with no less than seven concert masters within the ranks of its first
violins. Sony have done a marvellous job in mastering this historic mono
recording using 20-bit technology to produce first class realistic sound
with plenty of presence.

For those who are new to this wonderful, exuberant and touching work, they
will find it very approachable and brimming with memorable melodies. Who
could forget the lovely "Summertime" or "Bess, You is My Woman Now", "I Got
Plenty o Nuttin", or "It Aint Necessarily So"? There are
so many highlights - Serenas poignant aria, "My Mans Gone Now",
the Buzzard Song that anticipates so much disaster, the joyous "Oh, I Cant
Sit Down", Sportin Lifes seductive "Theres a Boat Thats
Leavin Soon for New York" and Porgys life-affirming final aria
"Oh, Lord, Im on My Way."

A treasure .

Ian Lace

Next months FILM MUSIC ON THE WEB review pages will carry a review
of the EMI recording of the complete Porgy and Bess by Sir Simon Rattle with
the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Willard White as Porgy and Cynthia
Haymon as Bess based on the highly acclaimed 1986 Glyndebourne Festival stage
production.